Re-Reading "The Dragon Reborn": Chapter 31: The Woman of Tanchico," "Chapter 32: The First Ship," and "Chapter 33: Within the Weave"
Both Mat and Perrin face new challenges as they continue on their own journey and encounter the many perils of the Pattern.
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For this week’s Wheel of Time Wednesday I’m focusing on three more chapters of The Dragon Reborn, two from Mat’s point of view and one from Perrin’s. After reconnecting with Thom at an inn, Mat and the gleeman make their way out of Tar Valon–thanks to the Amyrlin’s safe passage that Mat gained from Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne–only to find themselves accosted and nearly killed while on the river. Meanwhile, Perrin, Moiraine and Lan continue to try to catch up with Rand, passing through the wake of chaos that he’s left in his wake.
We’ll start with Mat. I’ll be the first to admit that he’s growing on me as a character this time around, something that I never thought I’d find myself saying. I know I’ve written before that I find Jordan’s male characters to be quite a chore to spend time with, but oddly enough I enjoyed these two chapters more than I thought I would. Like the other young folk from Emond’s Field, he’s just trying to do the best he can in a world that’s growing more dangerous by the day, and one in which he can influence events in remarkable ways but has no true agency of his own (or what he does have is highly circumscribed by the weaving of the Wheel).
As irritating as I often find him, it’s hard not to sympathize with this young man as he ends up taking the life of not one, not two, but three different men as he tries to get out of Tar Valon. By this time we’re in the third book of the series, so it can be a bit difficult to remember that, for all of his confidence, Mat is still very vulnerable. What’s more, though he often likes to act as if he’s above such things as loyalty and conscience, his response to the fact that he’s taken three lives in one night shows us that he really is a good man, even if he is very frustrating.
Of course, the other major figure in all of this is Thom himself, and we come to see just how much the death of his beloved Dena has had an influence on him. Despite this, he doesn’t let his grief stand in the way of helping Mat get out of Tar Valon, though as always he seems to have motivations of his own. Furthermore, while he might have been acting as if he was drunk, he soon shows that either he’s not quite as inebriated as he wanted others to think or he has a far steadier hand than most even when he’s in his cups. Either way, it’s once again that there’s far more to this gleeman than he is ever willing to let on. Which, of course, is why we love him so much and why he makes for a perfect companion for Mat.
One of the more startling revelations in these chapters is the fact that things have begun to get very dangerous in Tear. While Jordan doesn’t come right out and say it, it’s clear that this new Great Lord of Tear is one of the Forsaken, doing everything in his power to spread his malign influence over any who will hear him. The fact that he is able to have such influence on a mere ship’s captain suggests that he can cause quite a lot of damage from within his little corner of the world. After all, Tear is one of the mightiest nations east of the Aryth Ocean, and if he can marshal this city in his efforts to cause chaos and destroy the power of the Aes Sedai, then the damage he could wreak would be substantial. And, as the captain’s scathing comments about Mayene and Illian reveal, there are already a number of deep-seated enmity and rivalries on the continent that the Forsaken can easily exploit, even if they don’t yet know everything about this very changed world in which they find themselves.
Now, on to Perrin.
Of the three young men from Emond’s Field Perrin is obviously the one with the strongest moral compass, and he finds that tested again and again. Here, he confronts the possibility that the Wheel is capable of spinning out both good and evil in equal measure, something that violates his deep-seated understanding of how the world is supposed to work. One can hardly blame the boy if he feels as if everything is spinning out of control, particularly since he also sees the evil that men are capable of inflicting on others. The sight of an Aielman caged for no good reason–other than that he’s Aiel–is a graphic illustration of Moiraine’s belief that there is no inherent goodness to the weaving of the Wheel. This is a vexing moral question that takes a great deal of deliberation and that defies easy answers, so it’s all the more appropriate that it’s one that falls to Perrin, who is nothing if now deliberate when engaging with the world around him.
Even though Mat and Perrin take up the lion’s share of the narrative in these three chapters, we also get a brief insight into poor Rand, who is really having a time of it. Not only is he laboring under the burden of being the Dragon Reborn and a wound in his side that will not heal; he also has to contend with the visions that haunt him. I may not be Rand’s biggest fan, but I still feel sorry for him. He never asked for any of this and yet, because of his destiny, he must suffer the torment of dreams, without knowing which ones are real (and thus can hurt him) and which are just the products of his own fevered imagination. Small wonder that the poor guy constantly feels like he’s at the end of his proverbial rope.
All in all, I continue to enjoy my reread of The Dragon Reborn. It’s a slow-moving book, to be sure, and it’s clear that Jordan is still sort of feeling his way forward when it comes to the overall narrative. While I enjoy getting the additional viewpoints of characters like Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve, it’s really quite startling the extent to which Rand has become a rather secondary character in a book that’s titled after him. Still, one can positively feel the threads of the Pattern pulling him, and us, to a fateful confrontation in Tear that will change everything, for better and for worse.